Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage 01]

by One Wicked Night

  “Oh, you are married?”

  “Widowed.”

  Fanny practically preened. “Go on, my good man, please.”

  “Dunn had come calling on behalf of the orphanage. I told him that I didn’t have blunt enough to be giving it away, and he somehow convinced me to donate my time and ‘handiwork’ instead.”

  “Very charitable of you.” Fanny bustled her skirts sideways, exposing just a hint of ankle.

  “And?” Dillon urged.

  Eyeing Fanny, Winner tugged at his cravat. “Nick had had the fever and was segregated from the other children in the dormitory. He was a mere slip of a thing, really—”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Dillon declared.

  “He was not always the mighty Nick he is today. No.” Dr. Winner sighed, looking wistful. “He’s grown up, our boy.” He smiled. “I can’t really take the credit, but I’m proud of him just the same.” He turned to Fanny. “He’s the enquiry agent to the queen, you know.”

  Fanny nodded sagely, tracing a finger across the line of her jaw. “I had heard something of that. But I would love to know more.”

  “He saved her beloved pug, Lancelot.” His brow furrowed, and he turned to Lillian. “But you were there, Lady Janus. You can certainly tell it better than me.”

  “Nick was magnificent.” Lillian shook her head, still impressed with Nick’s abilities. “He could see what we could not. The wretched Master of the Hounds, Mr. Glen, was a foul character of the worst sort. But I had no idea. I was completely fooled. But not Nick.”

  “He knew straight off that the scoundrel was behind the kidnapping?” Dillon scratched his ear. “Or is it dog-napping?”

  “Nick came to it by piecing together all of the facts and seeing which did not fit. It was all very logical….” Lillian’s thoughts drifted off. The spark of an idea flickered like the wick on a candle. Gradually, it intensified. Nick was a creature of logic. She just had to find a way to let him know that it went beyond all logic for her to abandon him. So that she would never do so. But how to elucidate that point?

  “And?” Dillon urged. “Then what happened?”

  “Oh,” Lillian blinked. “What did you say?”

  “You were telling us about the Master of the Hounds…Mr. Glen…”

  “You tell it, Dr. Winner, I feel the sudden inclination to stretch my legs a bit. I’ll be in the back garden.” She rose. There was too much thinking to be done for lazing over a chitchat. She needed a plan. And a good one. She headed for the door.

  “Oh, I was so distracted, I forgot to ask,” Winner declared, drawing her from her reverie. “Is Nick around?”

  She stopped midstep. “Isn’t he at the meeting of the Board of Trustees?” Then it struck her. “With you?”

  Winner’s mouth worked. “That’s not until tomorrow.”

  Lillian felt as if a bucket of icy seawater had been dumped over her head, drenching her to the bone. And it stank.

  “Oh, dear,” Fanny muttered, rising.

  “Lillian, you’re as pale as plaster,” Dillon declared. He rose. “What’s wrong?”

  Lillian suddenly found it a trifle hard to breathe. He had lied. Nick, her upright, noble savior, had lied. And he wanted to talk with her this afternoon. It was the end. Her end.

  “Are you ill, Lady Janus?” Winner stood, setting down his china cup with a clatter. “Can I help?”

  “Her affliction is most severe.” Fanny wrapped a thick arm over Lillian’s shoulders and squeezed. “And, I hate to say, untreatable.”

  Chapter 29

  Nick waited in the opulent drawing room, pacing before the tall windows. His palms were sweaty, his mouth parched. He knew that this was a long shot, but he had to try.

  His instincts were telling him that Lillian could not be swayed with words alone. And he could sooner ignore the voice in his head than suffer watching Lillian cry as she had this morning. It had made him want to find a way to make it stop—either that or hit someone. He knew that she was not happy. He could almost see her struggle as she fought with her feelings for him.

  She would not be won over with expressions of affection. No, it would take a broad stroke for her to finally understand that love was not a malady to be suffered poorly, contained, or, better yet, recovered from.

  Not that he was an expert on the overpowering feeling. It was so new, so compelling. It was like his world was awash in a prism of color that blinded him of everything else. At the center of light was his golden-haired beauty who made the pulse in his veins drum with intoxicating vigor. When she was around, he felt more alive than he had ever been. More aware of the significance of being a part of something greater than himself. When she was away, he longed only for the moment when he would be back with her.

  His feelings were so fantastic, so foreign to his experience, that they terrified him to his bones. But he figured that if he was going to be scared out of his wits, then he might as well be with the woman that he loved. But she needed proof, something so rock solid as to make her believe.

  So he paced in the drawing room, waiting to see if his suspicions would bear fruit. Waiting to see if he could take this incredible ardor and make it whole, with Lillian.

  “Mr. Redford.” The sinewy Viscount Rece stepped through the doorway. His gray hair tufted around his head, reminding Nick of a barn owl. Nick recalled a moonlit night when he and Lillian had met; they had each been escaping a crowd and had found each other.

  Lord Rece scratched his head. “I suppose you’re here about our failure to visit. There is no manipulation on my part, I assure you. My wife has been suffering from a cold.”

  Nick shook off the memory, focusing on his charge. “I know, my lord. Lillian received Lady Rece’s note.”

  His bushy gray brows lifted. “Oh.”

  “I’m not here about your wife. I am here about you.”

  “Will this take long?” Rece frowned. “I have an appointment.”

  “It depends on how quickly you answer my questions. If you please. It is important.” Vitally so.

  “Very well.” Rece waved him to a seat. “But I will not delay my business for long.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Nick felt his heart begin to pound as he settled into the armchair by the window. The afternoon light bathed the red carpet in golden color, reminding him of Lillian’s lovely hair. “I wish to ask you about your falling out with Lillian’s family.”

  “It’s a bit late for trying to clear the air, Mr. Redford.”

  “Perhaps you are correct, but my instincts are telling me that it is worth exploring.” Nick pulled at his coat sleeves, assuming the mantle of enquiry agent. “What was the nature of the falling-out?”

  Rece studied him a long moment, then shifted sideways in his seat. He straightened his coat, looking away. “I don’t know that I’m comfortable discussing this with you.”

  “Please, my lord.”

  “There is no good to come from it.”

  “Did you and Lady Janus’s mother have an affair?”

  Rece’s face darkened to an angry scowl. “How dare you insinuate any such thing?” He stood, pointing to the door. “I’ll have you tossed out!”

  Nick rose. “Was it three-and-twenty years ago? Before she had ever met Lord Cornelius Kane?”

  Rece looked as if he had gulped down a whole fish, bones and all. “Out! Out! You impudent knave!” His extended arm was quivering.

  “Did you promise to come for her, only to leave her high and dry?”

  “Stop it.” Rece’s voice was a harsh whisper, and his eyes slid to the open door. Slowly, his arm lowered. “Stop it now.”

  Nick felt the truth lock into place like a dungeon gridiron. Satisfaction filtered through him. Now it was only a matter of bringing Rece around to the facts.

  Nick strode to the entry and slammed the door closed with a thud. “Did you have intimate relations with Lady Janus’s mother? Yes or no?”

  “What is it any of your business?” Rece cried harshly
, looking cornered.

  “Anything that affects Lillian is my utmost concern.” Nick took a deep breath. “And I believe that Lillian may be your daughter.”

  Rece’s face drained of color. “What queer tricks do you play? If this is a callous ruse to deceive my poor wife—”

  “Lillian’s mother married Kane because she was forced to. The man she loved, the father of her child, never came for her as he had promised.”

  Rece’s brows knitted together, unwound and rejoined. “This cannot…” He swallowed. “How do you know these things?”

  “Lillian told me. She does not know that I am here today. She has no idea, but I had the suspicion. It was the eyes.”

  Rece raised a trembling hand to his face. “What do you mean?”

  “Azure.”

  “Many people—”

  “Not with that depth of color.”

  “Can this be?” he muttered, dropping clumsily into the chair. “Is it possible?”

  “You are the only one who can tell me.”

  Rece shook his head, looking older, lost even.

  “Did you have intimate relations with Lady Rece three-and-twenty years ago?” Nick asked softly.

  Slowly, Rece nodded. “Yes,” he whispered harshly.

  “And did you promise to come for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “I received a missive. My father was ill. Near death, it said. So I sent a letter to Iris, telling her that I had to go. That I could not meet her…”

  “Was your father ill?”

  “No. But how?” he cried, rubbing his eyes.

  “Kane.”

  Rece flinched, as if struck.

  “I believe it to be true,” Nick avowed. “He tried the same trick with Beaumont to get him away from Lillian. False notices of illness, even death. A ruse to try to get him out of the way.”

  “Don’t tell me…” He rubbed his eyes. “He did not succumb to the subterfuge?”

  “He knew that Kane was a serpent. How were you to suspect?”

  Rece seemed to wilt before Nick’s very eyes. “I thought…I thought that she could not have loved me if she couldn’t wait…. I was so angry. Felt so betrayed…”

  “Likely, she never received your letter. I presume you never received her posts.”

  Mutely he shook his head.

  “I venture that the posts from Lillian’s mother to you were interrupted. Bribe a servant and the world’s intercourse is undone.”

  “I came back and she was married….”

  “She thought you had left her. That you had forsaken her, and your child.”

  His shoulders slumped. “It was my fault. My own doing…”

  “I can see where Lillian gets her overblown sense of responsibility.”

  “Overblown? Nay.” Guilt flashed in his eyes. “I had told Kane. We were friends, you see. I thought that he would be glad for me. I had boasted of my great love…Even of her sizable dowry…” His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I led him to my Iris as surely as if I had handed him the wedding ring and sent him to the vicar myself.”

  “Kane is a viper. He has wrought destruction in his wake. Even if you had inadvertently given him the idea, it was his evildoing. The fault lies with him.”

  “The monster!” Rece hammered his fist onto his thigh. “I could kill him!”

  “Lord of the Manor of Tyburn shall have that honor. And it cannot come too soon, in my opinion. Solicitor General Dagwood is taking special care to ensure that he has the right man this time, but he cannot ignore the evidence. Kane will hang.”

  “So much lost,” Rece ground out, anger reviving him. “So many years of pain that I owe that bastard.”

  “Regret can only do so much. Now is the time to right the wrongs. You have the golden opportunity to show Lillian that she was not abandoned. That had you known…”

  “I would have stormed into Lord Janus’s household and claimed what was mine!” His voice rose with conviction. “The lady I loved and my unborn child.”

  “Lillian believes what her mother did. That you knew about her but did not love them enough to come for them.” Rage made Nick’s hands clench at the pain his beloved Lillian had suffered. “That you did not care enough to protect them from Kane.”

  “What have I done? My pride. My foolish pride. Oh, how I wish I could cut it from my character.” He swiped his hand across his wrist. “Cleave it away and bleed it out of me.”

  “What is all of the yelling about?” Lady Rece cried from the doorway. “I could hear you all the way in the parlor.” Her nose was red, her eyes glassy. Otherwise, she looked alert.

  Nick stood, looking over at Rece for direction.

  “Mr. Redford? What are you doing here? Is it Lillian? Has something happened?”

  Slowly, Rece rose. “Dorothea. There is something I must tell you….”

  “What is it?” She blanched. “Oh, dear. Where is a vinaigrette when you need one?”

  She swayed slightly, and Rece was immediately at her side. He and Nick helped her over to the couch and settled her there. Rece pulled a vinaigrette from his coat pocket. Obviously this was not uncommon.

  Opening the tiny silver box, Rece held it under her nose. She blinked, the color returning to her cheeks.

  “Tell me, Donald. Tell what ill has befallen my dear friend.”

  “Actually, Dorothea, I am pleased to be able to share with you good tidings.”

  “Really?” She looked doubtfully from Nick to her husband and back again.

  “I”—he cleared his throat—“I mean we are parents.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “It turns out that Lillian Kane is my daughter.”

  Lady Rece’s mouth opened, then closed. Her brow furrowed.

  “Really?”

  “I, ah,” Rece’s cheeks reddened. “It was a long time ago…”

  “So Kane is not her real father?”

  “No,” Nick supplied, wondering how much to say and what he should leave for her husband to handle.

  “I’ve never liked Kane. Hmmm.” She scratched her chin. “No wonder she always veered the topic away whenever I mentioned him.”

  “He’s a scoundrel of the first order,” Rece declared.

  “You do have exactly the same eye color,” she interrupted, staring off. “And that obstinate streak…hmmm. Makes a certain sort of sense.”

  “You think so?” Rece asked, blinking, as if taken aback. “You don’t seem very shocked.”

  “You act as if I didn’t know about Iris,” she huffed, sitting up.

  Rece’s cheeks reddened. “You did?”

  “Of course I did. You carried your pain around like scars of battle.”

  “I did?”

  “Why else do you suppose I befriended Lillian in the first instance?”

  “You knew that she was my daughter?”

  “Don’t be silly. Had I known that, I would have tried to take her here to live with us. No. I simply wished to know more of the woman who had broken your heart. By chance I met Lillian at the milliner’s one day. Since Iris was no longer alive, I hoped for intelligence from her daughter. But that fortuitous meeting grew into a wonderful friendship, since she is such a charming lady.” Excitement filled her gaze. “Do you know what this means, Donald?”

  He smiled with such affection that there was no question he loved his wife well. “What, Dorothea?”

  “I have my girl!” Tears sprang in her eyes, and she threw her arms around her husband. “This is wonderful! Wonderful news! I love you, Donald! You have made me so very happy!”

  Nick rose, stepping back to give them their moment together. He felt a tug of longing for such caring, for such a secure bond of affection.

  “Oh, Donald,” Lady Rece sighed, pulling back from his embrace. “Iris may have been your first love. I am just so very glad to be your last.”

  Nick cleared his throat loudly. They turned to him, as if recalling that he was there.
>
  “Lillian does not know yet,” Nick stated. “We must tell her.”

  Rece exhaled loudly, sitting beside his wife and clutching her hands in his. “Will you enlighten her, or shall I?”

  “She is unprepared. This will come as a great shock to her.” He could only imagine how he would feel being united with his natural father. “There is much emotion involved—”

  “So what do you suggest we do?” Lord Rece asked. “I must confess I am a bit nervous about her reaction.”

  Rece was not the only one. Nick was worried about how Lillian would receive the intelligence. And how she would view his role in the affair. She claimed not to want to know her natural father. He had not believed her, but what if it was true? What if his strategy blew up in his face? Instead of her overcoming her fear of love, what if Lillian turned against him for his heavy-handed behavior? Should he have come to her first with his suspicions before confronting Rece? He had not wanted to cruelly raise her hopes. It was a mighty gamble he was taking, and the stakes could not have been higher.

  “I can speak to her first, if you wish,” Lady Rece offered. “Smooth the way, so to speak.”

  Nick shook his head. “No. It’s my responsibility. I went behind her back to uncover the truth. I will be the one to tell her.”

  “You sound as if she might not be glad for the tidings,” Rece said, worry marring his brow.

  “She has not had it easy—”

  “Devil take Kane.” Rece shook his fist. His cheeks blanched. “Oh, how poorly I have treated her! My own daughter!”

  Shaking his head, Nick offered, “You did not know—”

  “Is that why Lillian took up with Beaumont?” Lady Rece asked. “To get away from Kane?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suspected as much, though she never said.” She patted her husband’s hand. “We will make it up to her, you and I. I know that she longs to have a family. She would never admit as much, but I can tell.”

  “Will she…be angry with me, you think?” Rece questioned, apprehensively.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure how she will react at first,” Nick replied. “But she is a woman of great sense. She will understand who the true villain is in this piece.”